


The Pines and the Birches

by scribefindegil



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 10:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7504327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribefindegil/pseuds/scribefindegil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was different from climbing other trees, when you looked for branches that were stout and steady under your feet. With the birch trees it was a balancing act, leaning back and forth as you climbed so that you stayed centered for as long as you could, and then casting yourself off to the side and letting the tree catch you.</p>
<p>Wendy takes Mabel swinging birches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pines and the Birches

**Author's Note:**

> So I was about halfway through writing this when it occurred to me to see whether Oregon actually has birches. It does not, apart from some isolated areas on the East side. So here are your options: a) Gravity Falls is magic and part of that magic is that there are a lot of birch trees there. b) This is an au where everything is the same as canon except there are birch trees in Oregon. c) This is set in selkie au, it just features zero discussion of selkies.
> 
> Just . . . let me have my self-indulgent tree metaphors. They're important.

“Heeeeeey, Wendy!”

Wendy lowered the latest issue of _Avoiding Eye Contact Monthly_. She regretted it as soon as she saw Mabel grinning at her over the counter, holding out a spread of the gaudiest, glitteriest nail polish Wendy had ever seen.

“Wanna do each other’s nails and talk about boys!?” she asked hopefully.

Wendy glanced around her for an avenue of distraction or escape. “I thought you had Candy and Grenda for that?”

Mabel slouched down, her head disappearing below the counter until only her hands and their sparkly neon contents remained.

“They can’t come over today. Candy’s mom got freaked out that she broke her glasses when we were fighting the unicorns, and Grenda got so excited she ripped the door off her house so she has to stay home and fix it.”

Wendy chuckled. “She and my Dad would get along like a house on fire. And I mean that in the metaphorical _and_ literal sense.”

She was still scanning her surroundings for something Mabel would think was more exciting than nail polish. Normally she’d switch the gift shop music to something more upbeat and start a dance party, but Stan had been making a big deal about controlling the music lately. He’d seemed a little high strung ever since his brother came back. He blustered around the Shack and threatened to fire her even more often than usual, although she could tell his threats were as empty as ever.

A stiff breeze from outside drifted in, rustling the pages of her magazine. She looked out through the mesh of the screen door and her eyes caught a flash of white among the swaying trees. She grinned.

"Okay," said Wendy. "I've got something way cooler than makeup or boys. C'mon."

"Ooooh!" Mabel squirred the nail polish away somewhere and hopped after Wendy as she headed towards the door. "A Wendy adventure!"

"You better believe it! Wait . . ." Wendy took a look at Mabel's current outfit—a heavily besequined galaxy sweater with a cheerful-looking UFO stitched across the chest and a green skirt that matched the alien waving from the UFO's window. "Have you got bike shorts or something under that?"

"Always!" Mabel replied. She spun across the gift shop, her skirt whirling about her knees, until she lost control and spun into Wendy like a top. The two of them tumbled to the floor.

"Whoops," said Mabel with a grin.

"Just be glad we didn't knock over any of the displays," Wendy said, extricating herself. "Your uncle would come down on me like a ton of bricks."

"Never!" cried Mabel dramatically. "I'll defend you! And Grunkle Stan’s a softie, really. You just need to learn to sweet-talk him!"

Wendy chuckled. "I'll leave that to you. Now let's get out of here before someone notices and makes me do my job!"

The two girls ran across the parking lot of the Mystery Shack and into the forest beyond. There wasn't really a path, but Wendy knew where she was going. Mabel followed close behind, calling out, "So where are we going? Are you going to teach me how to fly? Is that why you asked about the shorts? Have you secretly been part-fairy this whole time?"

"Ew, no," Wendy laughed, wrinkling her nose.

"Hmm. Wait! The fairy dust! Candy and Grenda told me about it! Are you going to use it to take me to a magical land where we'll fight pirates and never have to grow up!? I’m really good at happy thoughts!"

"Gosh, no,” Wendy answered. That was a story she’d been mad at since she was five years old. What was the point of running away to a magical place if you still had to be everyone’s mom? And what was the point of magical places that only existed so you had to leave them behind? “I've had enough magic lately. I'm gonna show you something better."

She looked around the clearing they'd just stepped into, the wide space dotted with young birches.

"This should do the trick."

As Wendy walked around, checking the width of the treetrunks, Mabel trotted behind her. Eventually, Wendy found what she was looking for, a young birch about as big around as her arm. She kicked off her boots and her mismatched socks; this kind of climbing was better with bare toes. As Mabel watched, she started to shimmy up the tree, bracing herself against the papery bark.

It had been a while since she'd gone tree-climbing properly. She missed it, missed the feel of the bark on her toes and the way everything seemed more manageable once she got off the ground. The tree swayed gently beneath her.

"Wendy, you're gonna break it!" Mabel called.

Wendy grinned. "I'm not! Trust me!" She was almost at the top of the tree. It wasn't that high--higher than the ones she'd used for this when she was small, that's for sure, but still only about thirty feet.

She took a moment, balancing carefully on the slender trunk, to look around her at the other trees, at the sky that was a little bit closer, and the ground and all its problems a little further away.

Then she smiled, and held on tight, and kicked her legs out to the side.

At first the descent was slow and gentle as the tree gave, bowed down and carried her to the forest floor. She whooped as she passed the midway point and her hair began to billow around her, and heard Mabel whoop back from the ground. Once she'd learned how to do this all the playground swings seemed so boring, especially once she'd found out that you couldn't actually swing over the top.

She touched the ground with the toes of one bare foot. Then she let go and watched the tree spring back, ruffling its leaves and straightening its branches.

Mabel crashed into her.

"That was SO COOL! Oh my gosh oh my gosh! How did you do it?"

Wendy shrugged. "Learned it when I was a kid. I guess it's some kind of science junk. The birch tree's bendy enough and you're heavy enough, and boom! Magic."

"Magic," said Mabel reverently. She started bouncing up and down, her hands clasping at Wendy's arm.

"Can I try?"

"That's why we're out here!"

Mabel walked to the bottom of the birch that Wendy had just swung and stared intently up into its branches.

"Not that one!" said Wendy. "You're smaller. Let's go with . . . this one!" She pointed to another tree across the clearing. Mabel ran across and stood at the base for a moment. Before Wendy knew what was happening, the smaller girl had disappeared into the branches with a cry of "GRAPPLING HOOK!"

"You good?" Wendy cried.

"I'm the greatest!"

She chuckled. "Sure are! Okay. Now you've got to get up as high as you can!"

"Dipper says I'm not allowed to climb trees where the trunk is thinner than my wrist," said Mabel conversationally. "He's such a worrier!"

"Well, he probably just doesn't know about birches," said Wendy. It was different from climbing other trees, when you looked for branches that were stout and steady under your feet. With the birch trees it was a balancing act, leaning back and forth as you climbed so that you stayed centered for as long as you could, and then casting yourself off to the side and letting the tree catch you.

"Okay!" called Mabel. "I'm at the top!"

"Now hang on tight with your hands and kick your legs off towards me!" Wendy called.

Mabel did so. "Wheee!!!"

She giggled as the tree drooped, bent and deposited her lightly on the ground. She let go of the treetop and it sprang back, leaving Mabel grinning with leaves in her hair.

“That was amazing! Can I do it again!?”

They swung their way through all the birches in the clearing until their arms were scraped and tired and Mabel flopped down onto the grass. Wendy lay next to her, wriggling her toes into the dirt. Mabel rolled over and rested her head on Wendy's stomach. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at the trees.

"When did you find out the trees could do this?" she asked sleepily.

“There was this one ice storm,” Wendy said. “I was pretty little. We woke up one morning and there was ice on everything, like half an inch. I thought it was the coolest. The whole town lost power and we didn’t have school for a week.”

“Woah . . .” said Mabel.

Wendy grinned. “Yeah. It was like time stopped, you know? My parents wanted to do some wilderness survival stuff so we hiked out into the woods. It looked like a really sparkly apocalypse scene.”

“Best kind!” said Mabel.

Wendy laughed. “It was super pretty. But crazy too. All these trees just toppled over and smashed into smithereens because the ice was too heavy for them. And then in the middle of all that, there were these birch trees. The tops were frozen to the ground, bent into these big arches, but I never saw a fallen one. But that wasn’t the really cool part.”

“Tell me about the really cool part!” Mabel yelled. “Cool part! Cool part!” She punched the air in time with her chanting.

Wendy grinned. Mabel was always an appreciative audience. “Okay,” she said. “So we made camp for the night, and they let me sleep in while they made breakfast. So I wake up, right? And we’re pretty freaking great at making snow caves, so I’m lying there all cozy in my sleeping bag, when suddenly I hear this huge boom. It sounds like there’s fireworks going off outside, or like, dynamite or something. So I run outside to see what’s going on—”

“What was it what was it?” Mabel was bouncing up and down excitedly.

“It was the birches.”

“The what now?”

Wendy smiled. “They looked like they were stuck all arched over, but it got warmer and the ice started melting, and as soon as enough of it melted they’d just . . . shoot up, and shake the ice off them. We heard them all day, just exploding up out of the ice.”

"Wow," said Mabel. "I wish I could see that."

"Maybe you will," said Wendy. "You could come back here in winter some year."

Mabel sighed. "Yeah. Come back . . ." She started winding a lock of hair around her finger, her face falling into a melancholy expression.

Wendy punched her shoulder. “Aww, come on, dude. You’re not moping about the end of summer already? We’ve got, like, so many adventures left!”

“Yeah.” Mabel nodded, then looked up defiantly. “Yeah, you’re right! Come on, I’ll race you back to the Shack! I’m gonna make a birch tree sweater!”

She disappeared through the trees. Wendy raced after her, yelling, “What! You got a head start, you cheater!” The birches behind them rustled and swayed in the breeze.

***

Wendy had heard a lot of explosions by the time they escaped from Mabel Land. She was getting good at telling them apart. Magical blasts had a fizz to them, an electrical tang, and ate up some of their own sound. Terrestrial explosions were heavier—thuds and smacks sounding as the debris fell. She could tell how close an explosion was by the sound, counting the seconds between the flash and the boom like she was tracking lightning.

This one was different. There was something about the noise the bubble made when Mabel leaned forward and popped it, a percussive blast followed by tinkling aftershocks, that seemed strangely familiar. It was only after they’d landed, as Mabel bounded up from where she’d fallen and rushed to hug them, that she realized. It was louder, Wendy thought, and deeper, but it sounded like a birch tree springing upright after a storm.


End file.
